Infantile
by WarriorQwil
Summary: An alien encounter has turned some important people on the Enterprise into toddlers! Shenanigans and hilarity ensue.


_A/n: I sincerely apologize for the atrocity of my faux-Russian accent._

* * *

"FUZZY!"

Sulu jerked around, looking for the source of the shriek.

"Where the hell is the captain?"

Pavel Chekov shifted the sleeping baby in his arms to scan the engineering deck. His blue eyes were wide and bloodshot, and his blonde curls were standing up even more wildly than usual. "Zere." He jerked his chin in the direction of one of the generator cylinders.

"Dammit," Sulu breathed, hitching the little girl in his arms higher up on his hip and striding toward their wayward captain. "You watch Spock!"

"Da!" Chekov called after him. "And you should not svear around ze children!"

Uhura twisted in his arms as he jogged toward the little figure of Kirk, bent over something on the ground behind the cylinder. Her eyes were bright, her round face alert, curious.

"What've you got there Jim?" Sulu said loudly as they approached.

James T. Kirk straightened to his full height of a foot and half and beamed, showing off miniscule, pearly baby teeth. He proudly held up a quivering ball of grey fur and announced, "Fuzzy!"

Uhura pointed. "Want fuzzy."

The Captain instantly snatched back the little ball of fuzz, cradling it against his chest. It was almost as big as his head. "My fuzzy!"

Her round face fell and her dark-chocolate eyes scrunched up. Her lower lip began to tremble. "Ohshitohshitohshit," Sulu swore under his breath. "Don't cry, please don't cry."

"Want fuzzy!" she wailed.

"Jim-" he began, in an attempt at a firm, yet respectful, talking-to-senior-officers-who-were-temporarily-toddlers voice.

But little Jim was looking at the Fuzzy with a frown of consternation etched on his childish brow. Then he held up a ball of fuzz in each hand, and said in a small voice, "Broke fuzzy?" Now his lip was trembling too.

"Nonono Jim-" But as Sulu reached out and touched one bit of fluff, it started to hum happily. The other one joined in, shivering in the toddler's palm.

"Fuzzy!" Then Jim held one up, looking earnestly at Uhura, and said solemnly, "Fuzzy?"

Her face split in a wide grin, and Sulu almost dropped her as she leaned forward to snatch it up. The kids were heavier than they looked.

"Why don't we go show Dr. Mc – Bones and Pavel the Fuzzy?" Sulu suggested with false cheer.

"Yah!" Jim started off at the tottering run of all children everywhere.

"Down!" Uhura squirmed. "Down!"

Sulu set her down simply to avoid dropping her, and she took off after Jim on her stubby little legs. Sulu wiped his forehead and hoped fervently that the medical team was working hard on finding an antidote to whatever goddamn alien drug had caused this disaster. Unfortunately, Dr. McCoy was currently fast asleep and drooling in Chekov's arms. Nurse Chapel had _better_ be up to the challenge.

Jim and Uhura reached Chekov, bouncing around him and tugging on his black pants. "Fuzzy!"

Chekov sat down heavily on the polished floor, letting the Doctor slump across his lap, thumb in his mouth, eyes closed. Jim poked at his sleeping friend. "Fuzzy," he announced happily. Sulu blinked. He had another fuzzy, and Uhura still had hers. This one was chestnut brown.

McCoy made a little grumbling sound in his sleep, and frowned, so much like the adult McCoy that Sulu almost laughed. "Booones?" Jim whined. "Fuzzy, Bones." He poked the chubby baby boy again.

"Wake up Bones." Poke, poke. "Bonesss!" Poke. Bones stirred. And then –

"HE BIT ME!" Jim shrieked. "HE BIT MEEEE!" The last syllable trailed off into a wail, as tears welled up in his eyes.

"You poked him too much," Chekov said wearily, sounding about ready to break down in tears himself.

Uhura was beginning to cry too, tentatively, as if to see how much sobbing she could get away with.

"Oy!" someone yelled. "Don't touch that!"

Sulu jumped guiltily, even though he was standing innocently in the middle of the floor, and looked around. The red-clad, overworked, and irate figure of Scotty was striding toward them, but scowling, not at Sulu and Chekov, but off to one side. Sulu glanced over.

The slight boy in blue, standing at the control console by the water tank, looked up. He had less of the toddler jerkiness to his movements, and more awareness in his dark eyes. His small hands were splayed damningly on the touch screen.

"Whot do you think you're doin'?" Scotty asked him, accent thickened by indignation.

The boy seemed unfazed by the Scotsman towering over him, but he didn't respond.

"Do you know whot could 'appen if you pushed the wrong bootton? You could flood the bloody ship, that's whot. Or worse, divert water from the cooling coils in the engine. Then we'd all go up in flames! Whoosh!" Spock looked sideways at the console, and then up at Scotty, and back at the console, narrowing his eyes at it, as if he blamed the computer for inspiring such melodrama.

"And you!" He rounded on Sulu and Chekov. "You keep these rascals off my equipment! Whot are ya doin' down here anyway?"

"Ve couldn't stay on ze bridge," Chekov sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Zey vere pushing buttons zere too. And ve couldn't go to Med Bay, not vith zem zere. And ve vere going somewhere, I don't know, I just don't know, I'm so tired."

Sulu nodded in agreement. "We were going to our quarters, I think, but then the Captain ran off and we followed him and somehow we ended up down here."

"Well get oot!" Scotty said uncharitably. "I'm tryin' to run a ship down here, no a nursery school."

"Right. Sorry. Let's go Pavel. Come on." He dragged his friend to his feet, to groans and complaints in Russian. Sulu scooped up Uhura under one arm, and Spock in the other, and Chekov, already holding Bones who had fallen back asleep, breath whooshing between his tiny, parted lips, and picked up the Captain, one handed. The Captain squirmed.

They trudged up the catwalks in silence. Sulu wasn't sure where he was headed.

Then Sulu heard from behind him, Chekov's voice in a tone of trepidation he had never heard from the usually self-assured young genius: "Uhhh, Mr Sulu, the Keptin needs… changing. Sir."

"Fuzzy!" Uhura yelled happily, and grabbed his ear.

"… Shit."

"No, I don't zink so. He's just… vet."

Sulu felt his face burning. This was not something he had ever even remotely imagined when he signed up for flight lessons, so many lifetimes ago.

Sulu put down Spock and ordered him to watch Uhura who was happily cuddling with her… four Fuzzies? He dismissed the detail as unimportant, and turned to help with Jim. With three hands, they managed to get his tiny regulation boots off as he bounced happily. And then the black pants. The Captain was wearing a diaper… with the Starfleet insignia printed on it. Sulu didn't even want to consider why. They had arrived back from the away mission, wearing these miniature uniforms, in the arms of the dazed-looking redshirts.

"Uhhh."

"My hands are full," Chekov said, cradling Bones as possessively as Jim was holding his Fuzzy.

"Alright. Alright. Fine." Sulu sucked in his breath and yanked off the diaper.

Yes, thankfully, Chekov was right, he was only wet. But then – "Uh. We don't have another diaper."

"Uh."

"Uh!" Jim exclaimed cheerfully, and bolted.

Sulu, with his much longer stride, could have caught up with the child easily – if it hadn't been for the turbo-lift doors closing between him and the boy's bare bottom.

"Shit!"

"Quick, stop it!"

"I can't, I don't know the override!"

"He could go anyvhere!"

"I know, I know, I – wait. Spock!"

The boy turned.

"Do you know how to stop the turbo-lift?" Sulu asked urgently.

The child just blinked at him.

"Come here, come here." He hustled the young alien over to the computer screen beside the sliding doors, and pointed at the touch pad. "Stop the lift!" he commanded.

The Vulcan reached up to the pad, just above his eye level, and started tapping buttons. They waited with bated breath as the turbo doors whooshed open – but the lift was empty.

"Darn. He got off. He could be anyvhere. Vell, I suppose I could…" Chekov got wearily to his feet, heaving Bones up on one shoulder, and walking to the computer console. "Ensign Authorization Code Nine five," he said clearly. "_Vwector, vwector_ two." The screen blinked. "Attention please. Anyvone who sees a small boy unaccompanied, please report it immediately to com-station von nine two seven. Zank you." The screen blinked off. "I hate zose bloody vweetors."

The com buzzed, and Chekov punched up the video link. "Da?"

It was a redshirt, looking flushed. "Its… uh, he's down here, botanical lab, sir, uh, Ensign. But uh. He's… he hasn't got…"

"Yes, zank you, ve vill be zere momentarily." Chekov killed the link. "Vell? Vhat are you vaiting for? Go get him!"

"Why me…? Never mind." Sulu jogged to the turbo-lift and stepped inside, punching the button for his beloved botanical lab.

The doors slid open again and he stepped out, scanning the leafy greenery that spilled out of pots and trays and climbed the walls and dangled from the ceiling. So many places for a small child to disappear…

But it turned out he didn't even have to look. Almost everyone on the deck was gathered in Row 6, looking downward. He almost didn't want to see but forced his feet to shuffle forward. The ensigns and scientists parted to let him through.

Jim T. Kirk had deposited himself and his now numerous Fuzzies in the rich black potting soil in a bed of Orion Trebleweed, so called because of the low pitch it emitted when disturbed, and was digging through the dirt, happy as a worm in… well, dirt. The whole plot of Trebleweeds was humming. It sounded suspiciously like Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The Fuzzies were purring too, and Kirk was crooning along, something as tuneless as it was wordless.

The crew members were watching in what appeared to be critical shock.

"Sorry," he muttered, edging forward, scooping up the half-naked child and trying to think happy, fluffy, non-infanticidal thoughts. Unfortunately, all that materialized was _FUZZY!_

As he pushed his way back through the crowd, Sulu though he heard someone say, "Wasn't he wearing a tiny captain's uniform?"

He stalked to the turbo lift, and kept his eyes firmly on the wall as it rose, trying to ignore that his Captain was pantsless and currently smearing mud all over his yellow tunic. When it jerked to a stop and the door swished open, he didn't even bother to step out, just said, "Get in. Now."

Chekov looked up in surprise, but didn't argue. His tone hadn't been exactly sunny. The Russian leaned down to pick up Uhura, who was surrounded by a pile of furry little creatures nearly at high as she was. When Chekov lifted her out of it, she shrieked. "Nononono! Fuzzy!"

"There will be more Fuzzies," Sulu snapped, and was shocked at the fierceness of his own voice. "Now get in here. We're going to Medical, and, so help me, they had _better_ be done with that antidote."

There was silence in the lift, except for the faint pneumatic swoosh of the rails. And then the door was sliding open on the bright lights of Med Bay, and nurses were converging on them. Sulu could almost smell the mother-hormones as the women lifted the babies out of their arms, cooing and _awwww_ing.

Christine Chapel, the head nurse, remained mostly professional. She probably couldn't help the gushy smile on her face as she picked up Dr McCoy. "Let's start with the Doctor. Newman, the hypo please. A half dose, to start. Tai'keson, get me some topical anesthetic and the rubbing alcohol. Just let me put this little darling down. He's so cute, asleep like that…"

She leaned over the bed, wiping the lidocaine swab gently across Bones' throat. He was curled on his side, thumb in mouth, and he stirred in his sleep when she touched him. "Ooo's a sweet liddle boy den? Yes dat's yooo."

"Chapel!" Sulu snapped.

She jerked to attention. "Yessir!"

"Get the _fucking_ antidote," he hissed, "_Right now_ or I will devise a punishment that will make the last 14 hours of hell look like nursery school!"

"Yessir!" She uncapped the hypo, and, tilting the baby's head up gently, pressed it into the artery.

Bones yelped, eyes snapping open and widening, and then began to grow, naturally, proportionally, like watching a child age, but speeded up a thousand times. His clothes, courtesy of some alien magic, grew with him.

Chapel was watching his vital statistics carefully on the monitor beside the bed. "Ok, heart rate elevated, blood-pressure normal. Blood sugar low – how long has it been since they were fed? – cognition increasing, he should be coming round any second now – here he is! Welcome back, Doctor, how do you feel?"

Leonard McCoy blinked, and rubbed his eyes. "What the hell-"

Nurse Newman was already grabbing his chin, aiming a penlight at his eyes, "Look this way please."

"I – augh! Dammit! Get that thing away from me! I'm fine! What happened?"

"We'll explain later," Nurse Chapel said, already moving on to the next bed, heels clicking on the floor. "Now, you be a good boy Jim, this will only take a second."

"_Jim?"_ McCoy asked incredulously.

"Fuzzy," Jim announced, holding out his armload of Fuzzies.

"Yes that's right darling, now you just hold still and be a sweetie…"

Jim cooed, and then shrieked as she pressed the hypo into his neck. He flailed at her with his chubby baby hands that grew into a child's fingers, and into a lean calloused man's.

"What happened?" Jim groaned. "Last I remember we were in that cave thing, with the slimy glowing things and then, it's all hazy, like I was drunk and I …" A frown furrowed his brow. "Why am I naked? What are all these furry things? Why – why… I'm itchy. Where's Bones? It – Bones! I've got – hives! Bones! Why am I – argh! BONES!"

* * *

"Drink?"

"God yes." Sulu flopped at the table in his quarters, staring unseeingly at the wall, blind with exhaustion.

Chekov placed the glass in his hand and then pulled up a chair next to him. "I just 'ope nuzzing goes vrong tomorrow."

"Me too," Sulu groaned, absently petting one of the five Fuzzies huddled by his elbow – and he only remembered bringing one in – the things that happened on this ship sometimes. "God, me too."


End file.
